Roads to Joy

I’m delighted to add a guest experience to the joyful collection today. Jeff Richardson writes about the midnight perambulation I alluded to a week or so ago:

“Couldn’t sleep Saturday night so went for a walk — set out on my adventures about 12, into a night illuminated by a full moon. Walking down the track and two mallards came flying by from behind me, that low as they passed overhead I could feel their wing beats, as I listened to woodcocks calling out their haunting cries into the still air.

Further on I heard snipe cheeping to each other as they raced, zigzagging across the night sky, almost as bright as in daylight. In the distance I could hear a cock pheasant call out, only to be answered by more hiding birds scattered around the valley. As I got closer to the gate I could see an otter lolloping across the little bridge. I walked on up to the Coatenhill reservoir and disturbed a flock of greylag geese and mallards. Then I stood and watched as they called each other warnings of my presence. Illuminated against the full moon it felt like I was in a scene from a black and white war movie.

Further on up the road I stood leaning on a farm gate watching hares boxing in the field. As I meandered across the moors, the grouse shouted out warnings of the danger I posed: go back, go back, go backkk.”

It certainly sounds like an epiphany of the experience of nature, that midnight walk, Jeff, up and down the track on which we’ve shared so much hard labour, and thanks for describing it for us!